Snow on Pale Skin
by Ivory Novelist
Summary: Here is where the story changed. Here's where love never dies. No slash. Please read and review.


_A/N: _This is mediocre at best. I'm only happy with the last page or two. You'll see what I mean.

Written for my own prompt: "Winter."

Please read and review honestly, thank you.

You may also want to listen to the **Memoirs of a Geisha soundtrack** while you read. Especially the piece **"Confluence."**

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_Snow on Pale Skin_

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Todd soundlessly began to wake, as faint whimpering penetrated his door, and he lay with eyes closed for a minute, wondering where the noise was coming from. The twilight was still so pale, it was almost darkness, and he knew it must be insanely early. He wanted to roll over and go back to sleep for three more hours before breakfast, but the whimpering continued.

The puppy-like sounds began to take a different form – a word, though Todd couldn't make out what it was. He kept his eyes closed. Everything was silent and still, except for this pathetic mewl on the other side of the door. He listened.

Whimper, whimper, word. Whimper, whimper, word. Shuffling on the floor. A name? It sounded like a name... Amy? Army? Carly?

_Charlie. _

Who on earth was outside whimpering for Charlie? It wasn't even full-blown dawn yet, on this Saturday morning.

_Charlie. _

Todd gradually realized that in between the whimpers and the calling for Charlie Dalton, the anonymous person was crying. He was tempted to get up and go look out into the hall, but his bed was that perfect cocoon of warmth. Everything else was cold – the floor, the air, his slippers, his coat. Someone would hear the voice eventually. Maybe Charlie would finally wake up and go take care of it, whatever it was.

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"Charlie."

Cameron's strained whisper almost sizzled through the air, across the room to where his roommate slept.

"Charlie."

The other boy had his back turned to him, not making a sound. Cameron sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Nuwanda. Charlie."

Outside, beyond their door, a tiny voice was echoing Cameron's – calling for Charlie Dalton. Or at least, Cameron thought it was for Charlie Dalton. He didn't know of any other Charlie on this floor or even this school. He hoped he was right, or his roommate would be downright pissed off for being disturbed so early on a Saturday.

"Charlie," he repeated, as the whimpering continued through the wall. It sounded like a child, maybe one of the younger students. But what could a little kid possibly want with Charlie? As far as Cameron knew, Dalton didn't mingle with any of their biological inferiors.

The whimpering escalated into a muffled sob, and Cameron finally suffered to get out of bed, shivering and annoyed with having to move at all, as he crossed the floor to shake his roommate's shoulder.

"Charlie!"

"Huh? What?"

Dalton finally rolled over, waking groggily. He squinted up and swore when he realized it was just Cameron.

"What the hell do you want? What time is it?" he said.

"Someone's looking for you," said Cameron.

"What? Who?"

"I don't know. He's out in the hall – calling your name. Sounds like a little kid."

"A little kid? You woke me up for this bullshit?"

Charlie tried to roll back over, but Cameron pulled him back.

"Look, I can't sleep if the kid keeps whimpering out there. Just go see what he wants."

"Jesus, Cameron, just go back to sleep. And leave me the hell alone."

Charlie turned away again, and Cameron sighed to himself. He climbed back into his bed and grew quiet, but Charlie could hear the whimpering now, too. He waited a moment, before rising with a curse and sliding into his slippers. He whipped the door open, angry and ready to swear at whatever little brat had woken him up this early, only to have his face melt into stillness.

"Neil?" he whispered, looking at his oldest friend crumpled on the floor in the middle of the hallway. Neil almost sobbed, seeing Charlie through blurred eyes. Charlie swept down next to his friend, startled to find the actor in such a state.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

Neil only heaved with tears, his bare chest and back gleaming. Charlie couldn't tell if he was wet with sweat or water or what.

"Charlie," the actor cried painfully, struggling to catch his breath between sobbing and coughing. "Charlie."

"Neil? What's wrong?"

Nuwanda had no idea what to do. He had never imagined he would see his vibrant friend reduced to this puddle of distress. Neil slowly crawled into Charlie, grabbing him awkwardly, and Charlie wrapped his arms around the thinner boy, his brow knit in concern. Neil seemed to melt even further in his hold, though it hadn't seemed possible, and began to cry and sob outright, not bothering to be quiet anymore.

"Neil, talk to me," Charlie urged. "Tell me what's wrong."

"I couldn't do it," Neil choked. "I couldn't – do it."

"What, Neil? Couldn't do what?"

"I couldn't, Charlie. I couldn't."

He quaked against Charlie's chest, his pain palpable in every movement, his body wracked with tears. He sobbed and sobbed, as Charlie held him, his friend's warmth strangely chilling to his winter-ravaged body. Charlie had no idea what was wrong or how to get Neil to explain or calm down. All he knew was that he couldn't let go of his friend until things were okay again, no matter how wet his pajamas became.

He waited a while, letting Neil cry, before again pleading with him to explain what was wrong. At the same time, Todd appeared, cracking his door open. His eyes grew wide when he recognized the familiar back and shoulders and hair of the person Charlie was holding.

"Neil?" he dared to say. He hurried toward the boys, a familiar panic springing up in his chest.

"Charlie, what's wrong with him?" he questioned.

"I don't know. He won't tell me. He won't stop crying."

Neil sobbed anew, shuddering against Charlie, as he pressed his eyes shut in agony over the presence of his roommate. How could he face Todd? How could he ever tell them what had happened?

"Neil," Todd started, desperate to know why his most beloved friend was sprawled out here in nothing but his stage leggings at 5 o'clock in the morning, bawling and wet. "Neil, what is it? What happened?"

This only made Neil's tears intensify, until his lungs ached and he couldn't breathe for the lump in his throat. He squeezed Charlie as if deathly afraid his friend would let go and felt his strength crumble with guilt and self-loathing for what he had almost done.

"Neil, please!" Todd burst. "Please tell us why you're so upset."

"I couldn't do it," Neil whimpered, his eyes shut and streaming, pain erupting in his heart. "I couldn't do it, I couldn't. I tried. I just couldn't do it, and now my father's going to send me to military school and force me to become a doctor and leave acting. I can't! I can't, I can't. I couldn't do it."

"What, Neil? What couldn't you do?" Todd pressed.

"I tried," Neil said, his voice so meek, it scared Todd to his depths. "I tried, but I just couldn't. I couldn't pull the trigger."

Todd almost lurched at the words. Charlie's eyes snapped toward his, and they exchanged looks of horror and uncertainty.

"What did you say?" Todd murmured, afraid of the answer. Neil shook, trying to catch his breath, the tears like unceasing rivers down his face.

"I was going to kill myself," he whispered. "I was going to do it. I was going to use my father's gun. But I couldn't. I couldn't pull the trigger."

Todd's expression was indescribable, utterly horrified. Charlie's lips parted, and his heart jumped.

"I couldn't," Neil cried. "I couldn't. And now he's going to ruin my life."

Another door opened, and Knox came out of his room, hair messy and eyes still squinting.

"What's going on? Can't a guy get some sleep around here?"

He stopped when he saw Neil.

"Holy shit. What happened?"

"Knox, go get Keating," Charlie said. "Hurry."

It was not Charlie's typical cocky demand. It was of a quiet and serious plea. Knox stumbled over his own feet as he started for the stairs, and Neil just wept helplessly, shame now starting to pour into him and mingling with his guilt. Todd was speechlessly bewildered, unable to believe he had come so close to losing Neil, and clueless as to how to react.

It only took a few minutes for Knox to reappear, out of breath, with a somber Mr. Keating in toe.

"Neil?" he said. And the actor squeezed his eyes again at that familiar comfort – his teacher's voice. Oh, if only he had been born the Captain's son. If only his own father would love him...

Keating walked around Charlie to face Neil himself, squatting down inches from the boy's tear-sodden face. A moment of tense, whimpering silence passed before Neil forced his eyes open.

"I – I couldn't," he said. "I couldn't do it."

Keating's eyes shone. "Oh, Neil – how could you even think of something like that?"

"I – I just want to live, Cap'n. I just want to live."

Keating's face cracked with a wide grin, a dam for the anguish he felt rising in his chest.

"Why couldn't I do it?" Neil sobbed. "Why? Now I'll never be able to live again. My father's going to ruin everything."

He shook anew against Charlie, who was silently surprised to find tears slipping down his own face. Jesus, he had almost lost Neil. Neil – his first friend at Welton, the little boy who used to spend summer afternoons swimming with him in his backyard pond, the one who had remained loyal to him all these years, the one who had revived the Dead Poets Society, the one who had changed his life. Neil. He had almost lost Neil.

"I don't want to stop," Neil continued to Mr. Keating. "I don't want to stop. I don't want to be who I was before I met you."

Keating almost laughed, his eyes stinging, his heart clenching.

"Oh, you extraordinary boy," he said. "You don't have to worry about that. You don't have to worry about anything."

"My father! My father's going to take me away and make me a doctor! What can I do, Captain? Tell me what to do, I don't want to die. I don't want to stop living."

Charlie closed his eyes, never quieter, feeling Neil's body quiver with pain. Each tendril of hair dripped onto Neil's back and shoulders, every muscle glistened, and the contour of every bone lay in a perfect display of human beauty, loosely curled. His almost translucent skin was stretched over these bones and muscles, a shade made of white and gray and the play of dying. His wet leggings clung to his bent and gangly legs. It was as if he had tried to be a fish and failed. Drowned.

Todd sat mostly still, trying to breathe, gulping and panicking. Everything seemed to have shattered within him, and his brain was buzzing. His imagination suddenly overpowered him, beating him with images of Neil's corpse, Neil's face half-blown away, Neil's blood all over carpet, Neil's smile smashed and Neil's laughter choked out as if by an outpouring of carbon monoxide. The unexpected realization gutted him: Neil wasn't always going to be here. Neil wasn't going to stay. Neil was going to leave him.

And was it because of Mr. Perry? Was it just because of his endangered passion for acting? Or was it because Todd wasn't good enough? Not good enough to stay alive for, not a good enough friend, too shy and too scared and too unlike Neil, the smoldering, uncontainable Dead Poet committed "to sucking the marrow out of life." Was it because of Todd? Was it his fault that Neil had pushed that gun into his own blessed temple, a click away from total obliteration? What if Neil hadn't failed? What if Neil hadn't frozen up? What if he had succeeded?

Wouldn't it be Todd's fault? For not being there, for not seeing it, for not stopping him? Wouldn't it be?

It was Todd's whimper that finally distracted Neil from his own fit of despair. The actor turned away from Mr. Keating, half pulled out of Charlie's embrace, and looked at his roommate for the first time since the night before. Todd sat with the same spirit he had come to Welton with, the spirit that everyone had rejoiced at bidding farewell to – a defeated, wounded, silent soul. He had begun to cry, biting his lower lip in a vain effort to prevent it and to stop himself from making noise. But there he was – the boy without love. The boy who believed that he was worthless and a failure. His short-lived moment of glimmering self-hope seemed to have flickered out in mere seconds.

And Neil's pain for himself stopped.

"Todd?" he said. "Todd, are you all right?"

The poet stared at him steadily, only seeing a blurred figure, and shivered.

"Todd," Neil began and never finished. "Todd."

He crawled away from Charlie and Knox and Mr. Keating – and toward the damaged boy for whom his love was still so new. And fierce – fierce as love always is when it is young. In a way, Neil felt that Todd was the one friend he had who knew him best. Not for sharing a room with him, not for their conversations or their time spent together. But for reasons far beyond that of the physical world. Something in the fragile poet felt like a lost piece of Neil's own soul. While Todd saw Neil as his savior, Neil saw Todd as his missing piece, without which he could never be whole.

And this is the way they met again, anew – in a desperate, raw embrace that was apology, reassurance, comfort, love, need, anger, sorrow, and alliance all in one. Here, they sobbed and overwhelmed themselves with tears, the only appropriate description of their unspeakable emotions. Here, they knew what friendship this was going to be in six months, ten years, eternity.

Here, Neil knew he would live.

Todd wanted to scream at him but said nothing. Neil wanted to apologize but said nothing. They wanted to be afraid and furious and jubilant and morose – but they said nothing with their lips. They only felt, felt with every united heave of their chests and their chorus of sobs and with their hands pressed into each other's flesh and arms cradling themselves, each other, never wanting to drop and implode. They sealed their immortality in each other's rippling pain.

And suddenly Neil was the god, and Todd was the savior.

"Why are you all wet?" Todd whispered.

"I fell in the snow," said Neil, equally quiet.

"You walked all this way like this?"

"It kept me from stopping in the middle of nowhere."

"You should change into some warm clothes," Mr. Keating said gently. "You don't want to catch cold."

Neil smiled for the first time in eight hours.

"I think it's too late for that, Captain." He paused, feeling his heart slow down, curve back into life.

"You should see it, Todd," he whispered. "The snow – it's just like a poem."


End file.
